"All great discoveries are made by men whose feelings run ahead of their thinking" -
C. H. Parkhurst

Monday, 16 June 2008

Emotion - a familiar friend we hardly know

Greetings from Berlin.

I don't know why, but I've decided to spend the summer here. About this time last year I visited Berlin for three days and such was the impression made on me by the city and its unique inhabitants that I very nearly never made it home.

Well I wasn't ballsy enough to be THAT spontaneous, but I am rather chuffed to have made it here eventually. Much as I love the city I've called home for the last four years, the bohemian principled sloth and affordable everything of Berlin makes it a charming antidote to the hectic, runaway relentlessness of London.

Anyway, the only reason I'm checking in is to let you know that this month's Admap carries another little article by myself about Emotion. This time it's not just about 'negative' emotions, but the full gamut of affective experience (as superficially indicated by Pollack's grid of facial emotions below) and the question of whether we really know what we're saying or doing when it comes to 'emotion' in advertising.

On both counts, I think we haven't a clue.

If you get to read it, I hope you find it enjoyable or worthwhile - much of it may be self-consciously provocative nonsense, but I'd love to hear any thoughts anyway.

This blog...

... kind of came about as a result of an article I wrote in Admap about "Sad-vertising". Until I find something else to write about and as long as negative emotions are unfairly discriminated against in advertising, this is a place to enthuse over the deep, the sad, the melancholy and the meaningful.

About Me

I am a Creative Planner aged 31. Originally from Dublin, I've worked for McCann Erickson and DDB in London, and I currently freelance throughout Europe. Prior to advertising, I worked as an academic research psychologist. I'm happiest when playing piano and I'm an eternal optimist beneath a facade of critical cynicism.